Random thoughts on almost anything and everything, with an emphasis on defense, intelligence, politics and national security matters..providing insight for the non-cleared world since 2005.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Excuse Me, Mr. Fitzgerald...

You spent more than two years--and several million of our tax dollars--looking into the alleged "outing" of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Eventually, you indicted Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, on charges of lying to investigators and obstruction of justice. As for the original allegation--the deliberately revealing the identity of an undercover CIA operative--well, that never happened, did it? Too bad Ms. Plame was out of the covert business when the "crime" occurred, and the statute of limitations had expired as well.

With the Libby case now in the hands of a federal jury, you've probably got some time on your hands, Mr. Fitzgerald, and perhaps you're searching for that next big case. Well, here it is. Better yet, it's a case of covert CIA operatives actually being outed by a media outlet, in this case, the Los Angeles Times.

What's that? Oh, we forgot. You don't prosecute journalists for discussing the identities of CIA employees. You bring them into court as star witnesses. Perhaps you can find the bureaucrat(s) who tipped the Times to this story, then invite their reporters--Mr. Drogin and Mr. Goetz--to testify against them.

2 comments:

Yeah, this one's a real travesty. It's disgusting, actually. Not only were the agents outed, but so was the air carrier. While the Times didn't publish their real names, they sure published a great deal of information on their personal lives (along with their aliases) that I'm guessing can easily be traced back to these agents. I wonder how long it takes before their identities are either leaked or uncovered.

Seems to be a double-standard here. huh? I tried to find the LA Times' position on the Plame case way-back-when, but have had no luck. Did they editorialize on it? I'd love to see the hypocrisy...